


Something About George

by Pennin_Ink



Series: Something About Frieda's [1]
Category: Monsters and Other Childish Things, Mrs. Frieda's Halfway Home for Terrible and Freakish Children, The Drunk and The Ugly
Genre: Blood and Gore, F/M, Gen, Hero Antagonist, Manipulation, Monster/Kid, Moral Ambiguity, Prose Poem, Suggestive Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 21:32:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2747831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pennin_Ink/pseuds/Pennin_Ink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the rooftop confrontation with Benjamin Bradley, George fled the Halfway Home with Condor to undergo a second round of Trials, only to return soon after, changed.</p><p>It wasn't just the tattoos, something inside of him was different, something happened to George Fillburn in Chichen Itza, something deep inside, something angry.</p><p>This is a look at what that something might have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something About George

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sam Graebner](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Sam+Graebner), [Nayt Knapp](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Nayt+Knapp).



_Fire consumes._

My mom’s voice. But it doesn’t sound like her. It doesn’t croak around the damage to her throat, from the cigarettes piled one atop the next like a funeral pyre for her laugh. It’s never tired, or slurred, or rasped with anger.

Sometimes I don’t remember what my mom’s voice really sounded like. But I don’t care. I haven’t cared in a long time.

_ You know this, George. Because you have seen its work. Because it burns from within you. _

I don’t know where I am. He told me we were somewhere in Mexico, Chichen Itza or somewhere close to it. But what I’m standing on doesn’t exist anywhere in the world where I was born. I look around me and I see a spinning cosmos full of planets that have never been named. I look below me and the steps descend from my feet to forever. The pyramid is neverending; the sky is broken. And he and I are alone.

I know he’s a god. I’ve always known. But he speaks to me in the voice of a mother I dreamed I had and he rests his head on my shoulder and he is warm.

_Fire devours all it touches. It must. The moment it ceases to be fed it dies. To burn, George, is to be ravenous._

I feel a pressure, like a sharp finger pressing into the skin protecting my belly. I feel hungry, or, I have always been hungry and am just now noticing. There’s a twisting, crushing sensation and it feels like my stomach is caving in.

The world around me is cold, the air is like ice on my skin and the thing inside of me is starving hot. Cold things are made to be warmed. Cold things want to burn.

_ There is much still to teach you. You are still a child, but there is greatness waiting beneath your bones. I can help you to reach it. _

Condor is behind me. I feel the heat of his wings, heat that should sear and blister my skin but it feels more like the heat of a body held against mine, alive and pliant and soft.

I think of Emma. I remember the pain, the shock as one of her knives, invisible and viscious, sank itself into my heart and twisted. I remember every dream, every fantasy, the ones that danced so close before they skittered away in fear, the ones that indulged and left me burning and lost in my own body. I remember wanting, the hot licks of desire against the inside of my skin.

I see her. Condor paints her in the sky, dancing with the planets and the stars, dancing with the fire that acts as her dress, the same color as her hair. The heat lifts her hair in a wild halo and shows her scars to me, the indelible warpaint on a goddess of destruction.

I think of Scott, meek and quiet, fragile as glass, and he joins her in the sky, cowering before her as she burns galaxies around them. The fire snaps at his heels, creeps ever higher until it singes the feathers at his wrists. He wails before me in a soundless scream, his feet faltering, and she continues to dance. She leaves him behind, spinning down from the sky to stand before me, face to face. I watch the rise and fall of her breathing and forget so many things.

_ Fire takes, George. It takes and takes and always demands more. _

My Emma is engulfed in fire and she’s not burning. My Emma is standing in front of me, naked and wild and mine to take. My right. My gift from the fire.

I reach out and grab her to me. She falls into my arms, silent and beautiful, and when I kiss her she raises her arms to engulf me, her fire leaping from her body to mine until we are both wrapped in it. We are part of it.

I do not see her skin blacken until her fingers have already begun to crumble between mine. I stare at her, expecting horror but she does not scream. Her neck is arched back in ecstacy as her body is consumed, and when she is gone there is only the charred shadow of her body where it was pressed to mine.

_ This is your legacy, my child. Your destiny. There is power within you too great to deny. It hungers as only fire can. Feed it, and see the world cower at your feet. _

The soot shadow from Emma’s feet spreads like tar, widening beneath me until I’m standing in the palm of a massive black hand. The fingers lift themselves from the stone and begin to curl around me.

I feel the fear. It bubbles up behind my ribcage, squeezes my lungs and twists my heart. I run, bolting for the endless stairs only to find that they now lead to a field. The smell of blood is everywhere, and I’m wiggling my bare toes in viscera and bile.

I feel dizzy, like the world should be spinning around me but it stays infuriatingly still, and clear, so I can see everything. All around me are bodies, frozen in the disgusting moments between flesh and bone. I see dangling jaws and sloughing thighs, I see hands where the skin has fallen off like a glove, shed in the way a snake sheds. Everywhere I look there are bloated bellies, dripping bones, and though I try my body refuses to be sick.

Emma stands in the distance. She is wearing armor I don’t recognize and Condor stands behind her, his wings spread wide so she looks to me like an angel of war. She approaches me and the scars on her face glow like embers.

_ Look upon your inheritance, George.  _ Condor says in my mother’s voice as the girl I love strides through the carnage so that the blood stains her feet and legs a dark, sticky red. _This is the story written in your bones._

I look at Condor, the markings on his featherless head stand out in stark contrast to his skin. I don’t know why, but for the first time they frighten me. They fascinate me. Something in my skin calls out to something in his and I feel...changed.

I want to run. My feet stay rooted to the ground, tangled in the blood and sinew. My legs lock, and Emma is close enough to touch.

She does.

_ He sleeps. _

Her hands are dripping with blood and her fingers drag along my skin, leaving trails of red in their wake.

_He is waiting._

Her hands are at my neck, fingers closing around my throat, and there’s still more blood dripping down her wrists. I feel the mucles in my neck moving as my head tilts itself back. She spends a lot of time there, pressing the blood into my skin, burning sweetly everywhere she touches.

I can’t breathe. I haven’t been able to breathe for a long time, and the burning in my lungs feels good. Emma drawing secret things into my skin feels good. I am still afraid, but it’s a far away fear. It’s outside of my skin and I don’t have time for it when my Emma’s hands find my chest and the blood on her fingers is hot.

_There is much you must do. There are many choices to make, for a man with the strength to make them._

I open eyes I don’t remember closing. The air on my skin is hot and my Emma is gone. There is no blood on my skin, but everywhere she touched has darkened the way everything darkens when it burns. The patterns and symbols have sunk into my body and I feel the promise of fire at my fingertips.

_ I have many things to tell you George. About the past, about the future. About who you were and who you will become. _

There are promises all around me on this battlefield. The bloody innards under my feet are soft and they smell sweet. I lift my hands, and I know how to make them smell even sweeter.

Condor is behind me without moving, his wings enfold me and the fire is warm and bright and perfect. I fall into the downy feathers of his breast and my mouth pulls back in a smile. I don’t remember having this many teeth.

_Are you listening, George?_

Through the dance of his burning wings I see my Emma again. I watch her dance with the shadow of my fear until, like Scott, it falters in the steps and burns away.

“I’m listening, Condor.” I say.

_Then I will begin._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this story. Odds are, if you've gotten this far you're already a listener of The Drunk and the Ugly podcast, and you probably know all about Mrs. Frieda's Halfway Home, but just in case you have no idea what's going on, let me explain.
> 
> The Drunk and the Ugly is an RPG Actual Play podcast. The members get together over Skype and play RPGs, recording their sessions and then posting them to drunkandugly.com. They stand out among similar podcasts for their rich character development and dramatic character interactions. If you're interested in learning more about the boy who walks with a fiery god, or the girl with the scarred face, or the boy with feathers on his arms, go to drunkandugly.com or subscribe to The Drunk and the Ugly on iTunes to listen for free.
> 
> This fic was largely inspired by the heartbreakingly beautiful poems of Sam Graebner, the voice of George in Mrs. Frieda's. I couldn't have written this half so well without them. His first book of poetry, Condor: A Book of Poems, is available at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/359331644/condor-a-book-of-poems/posts/748438
> 
> Special thanks also to Nayt Knapp, the voice of Condor in Mrs. Frieda's, whose performance I did my best to emulate with Condor's dialogue. 
> 
> If you haven't guessed yet, The Drunk and the Ugly is very dear to my heart, and I wish them all the success in the world. Since I started listening to the DnU almost a year ago now, the group have grown and evolved into increasingly masterful storytellers and ever more captivating performers, and some of them are now my dearest and closest friends. Something About George was my first ever fic in the Frieda's verse, and was written back in May, partially as a thought experiment, and partially as a gift for Sam, who seems to like it when I write nice things about him. Go figure. 
> 
> I've decided to move the Something About Frieda's series to my AO3 to see if I can catch a few more ears for the DnU's podcast. I hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> Thank you.


End file.
